"With a career so long, so consistent, so surprising and so unsung, and really no bad or even just OK releases in that entire time, they are the litmus test for the discerning rocker, the fire that draws the few bits of truth left out to the surface. Anyone who claims to be down for this cause and has ignored this band is a fuckin’ worm, straight up, and only hangs out with you because they want something."http://still-single.tumblr.com/post/18888556655/cheater-slicks-guttural-vol-1-live-2010-lp

_________________I have a belly full of venom.

Last edited by HIGHBEN on Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

“dark psychedelic noise punk” from Colubus, Ohio that squeezes some bent 80s moves through Columbus u-ground forms. Each cover is hand-screened in some uniquely hideous color combo and the abnd name handwritten on each one after the paint was (mostly) dry – I get writer’s cramp just looking at the thing.

-Indoorsman Records.

_________________I have a belly full of venom.

Last edited by HIGHBEN on Sat Sep 01, 2012 8:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

Altered States of the United Snakes -- PAGAN TIGER SWING BAND lp [Lost Treasures of the Underworld]

Man, this is a confusing record. Because it was recorded at Columbus Discount Recordings, I thought it was on that label -- but no, it's actually on another label entirely, something that's not made terribly clear by the album's deliberately mystifying packaging and liner notes. It certainly sounds like it could be a CDR release; it's all about the lo-fi, mind-melting psychedelic garage rock experience. Just to make things more confusing, there are apparently a couple of unlisted songs (meaning, the scribbled titles on the jacket are not terribly helpful), and the songs themselves are deeply mysterious, sounding something like the product of members of an obscure religious cult jamming in the temple basement. Half the time the treble-heavy guitar sounds like a piano fed through miles of reverb, and while the bass and drums provide a regular (if sometimes ramshackle) rhythm section, the addition of "oscillating feedback" adds a spaced-out layer of sound that makes it all the more otherworldly. Even more intriguing is how the guitar and oscillator tones frequently mimic the sound of a demented gospel choir -- or maybe those really are vocals buried in the background and drenched in so much echo that they're indecipherable; certainly the liner notes appear to include lyrics, although they're written out in such a primitive form of hen-scratching that it's hard to tell. (There are clearly discernible vocals on a couple of songs, but that doesn't mean there aren't hidden ones elsewhere; this is definitely a band that likes to play it close to the vest.) I can't decide if they were high on drugs or Jesus when they made this, but either way, it's a pretty surreal listening experience, and definitely one that's probably best appreciated while under the influence. The vinyl is limited to 300 copies (100 on black vinyl, 100 on white, and 100 in fluorescent swirl), housed in hand-drawn / silk-screened jackets repurposed from old record jackets scavenged from the Used Kids Records free bin.

Cheater Slicks -- GUTTURAL: LIVE 2010 lp [Columbus Discount Records]

Legendary in garage rock circles, the rocking trio known as the Cheater Slicks formed in Boston in 1987, moved to Columbus, OH in 1996, and have been rocking the house on stage and otherwise from day one. As the album's title attests, this is a live recording, with eight tracks taken from different shows throughout Columbus in 2010, but there's more to the story: this is actually the first of three volumes designed to showcase their best songs in the setting that best suits them, on stage. For a band known for its rousing live shows, it's a little surprising to discover they've never had a live album to represent that aspect of their existence, and this three-volume series is designed to correct that. Listening to the album, it's not hard to see how they gained such a legendary reputation -- this is intense stuff, raw in sound and loud in volume, that perfectly encapsulates the entire purpose of garage rock (namely, good and catchy songs played with wild abandon and a total indifference to fussiness, at a volume capable of sterilizing cockroaches). I'm not sufficiently bumped-up on the band's catalog to know how iconic these songs are to the band's established audience, but they certainly burn through all eight tracks like their pants are on fire -- these are seriously rocking tunes. Essential listening for garage rock enthusiasts and fans of high-octane, no-frills rock and roll.

Cheater Slicks -- LIVE VOL. 2: 2010 lp [Columbus Discount Records]

The second volume in the Cheater Slicks live series isn't quite as frantic as the first one, focusing more on mid-tempo ballads (or what passes for ballads in garage land, anyway), but it's still plenty intense and every bit as noisy as the previous album. The seven tracks here were taken from the same three shows recorded in 2010 that yielded the previous album's eight tracks, and thus the sound is similar (and consistently good, at least by lo-fi garage standards); the only difference here is that band generally substitutes groove for velocity this time around, giving the album a certain swing where the previous album more closely resembled hot rods racing across the desert. Which is not to say the album doesn't have its share of white-noise moments, because it does -- but even then, they're more about the primal stomp this time around. They still make a plenty ferocious racket, though, and this album is every bit as essential as the previous live collection.

The Altered States Of The United Snakes Pagan Tiger Swing Band LP (Lost Treasures Of The Underworld)

There’s something about an LP jacket so thickly crusted with paint that I find undeniably appealing, from my copy of the Universal Indians / Gravitar split LP (which is still somehow wet!) to this wonderfully disorienting LP by The Altered States Of The United Snakes. I think anyone outside of Ohio probably figured this was an LP by the Pagan Tiger Swing Band from the cover design, but nope, it’s vice versa. Not sure if this is anything more than a one-off project from what must be some group of Columbus Discount buddies (a Cheater Slick? a T.N. Viking? Some sort of Basshole?), but I’m not too concerned with The Altered States Of The United Snakes’ touring plans – they gave us an album of nicely-distorted rock songs and that’s good enough for me. Musically it’s not too far from El Jesus De Magico, or maybe even The Dead C (if you want to expand the geography), but really this sort of thing has to come from Columbus; even Australians can’t rightly fake it. It’s kinda like the Columbus indie-rock answer to the early Comets On Fire records, where you can tell they’re in some cramped and stinky room, high, and jamming their songs harder and more extended than they should (who’s gonna stop them anyway?), with one guy chain-smoking and running keyboards and tapes through a space-echo just for the hell of it. Sounds like something I’d want to hear, and it certainly is!

Cheater Slicks Live Vol. 2 2010 LP (Columbus Discount)There are two live LPs reviewed this month, and I like them both – unprecedented! Kinda makes me wish I still had a copy of NOFX’s I Heard They Suck Live handy to really make this a September to remember. Anyway, Cheater Slicks are an institution of blue-collar garage-rock, with surely at least half a dozen killer records I have yet to hear (among the many I have heard), but I’m listening to this live LP right now, and it sounds pretty darn good. The show they’re playing sounds like a real hoot, like they are performing in front of an audience who not only gets what Cheater Slicks are all about, they are hungry for it. And I know it’s probably the other way around, but a lot of Live Vol. 2 2010 reminds me of Watery Love in the way the music hits me directly in the stomach, or perhaps Feedtime in the way it sounds like calloused coal-miner hands are playing the guitars. That’d be one Manwich of a show: Cheater Slicks, Feedtime and Watery Love. Were I ever to attend such a concert, I’d probably stop waxing my chest once and for all.